Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: concert band templates (Read 18061 times) previous topic - next topic

concert band templates

can someone create a concert band template, im a music studedn and wish to create one, but not sure how to do it in noteworthy... if someone can help me that would be great... thanks

Re: concert band templates

Reply #1 –
Start by deciding if you want a short score or a full score.  Then decide if you want the score to be in concert pitch or transposed.

Make a staff for each instrument - higher instruments are at the top.  Insert a blank staff between each grouping of instruments, make all the other staffs have staff properties that include orchestral bar lines.

You'll need to confirm the score order, but I think it's:
Piccolo
Flutes (1,2)
Oboe (1 or 1,2)
Eb clarinet
Bb clarinets (1,2,3)
Eb Alto clarinet
Bb Bass clarinet (possible 1,2 but more often, just one)

Bassoons (1,2)

Saxes -
soprano,
alto 1,
alto 2,
tenor (sometimes tenor 1 and 2, but not often)
baritone

Trumpets and cornets (1,2,3, sometimes 1,2,3,4)
French horns (usually 1,2,3,4)
Baritone t.c. and b.c.
Trombones (1,2,3,4?)
Tubas

Percussion (as many lines as you need)including tymps.

Please check all of this against a real score- I wrote this from memory, and I've never conducted.

Re: concert band templates

Reply #3 –
Jubal, if you put an exclamation mark in front of the URL, the forum will recognize it as a hot link.

Re: concert band templates

Reply #4 –
The score order given by David was very close to "standard".  There really isn't a standard, but here's the order I encountered most often as librarian in army bands:

Vocal (if there is one - might also be elsewhere)
Piano (very rarely, and only if there's a vocal line immediately above, and there's a lot of piano and voice only)

Piccolo
Flutes
G Alto Flute (rarely used)
Oboes
F English Horn (not always used)

[American Settings]
Bassoons
Contrabassoon (rarely used)

Eb Clarinet (not always used)

[British settings]
Solo Bb Clarinet
Repiano Bb Clarinet (yes, it IS spelled this way despite the normal spelling.  Sometimes called 1st Bb Clarinet)
2nd Bb Clarinet
3rd Bb Clarinet

[American settings]
Bb Clarinet 1
Bb Clarinet 2
Bb Clarinet 3

Eb Alto Clarinet (not always used)
Bb Bass Clarinet
Eb Contralto Clarinet (never used in older British settings)
Bb Contrabass Clarinet (very rarely used in older British settings)

Bb Soprano Sax (infrequently used, mainly in older British settings)
Eb Alto Saxes
Bb Tenor Saxes
Eb Baritone Sax
Bb Bass Sax (rarely used)

[British settings]
Bassoons
Contrabassoon (rarely used)

[British settings, American settings usually]
F Horns 1 & 2 (sometimes in Eb, or part provided for both keys)
F Horns 3 & 4 (sometimes in Eb, or part provided for both keys)

[British settings sometimes]
Bb Cornet 1
Bb Cornet 2
Bb Cornet 3

[American settings, British settings sometimes]
Bb Trumpet 1
Bb Trumpet 2
Bb Trumpet 3

Bb Flugelhorns (rarely used)

{American settings sometimes]
F Horns 1 & 2 (sometimes part provided for Eb horn as well)
F Horns 3 & 4 (sometimes part provided for Eb horn as well)

Trombone 1
Trombone 2
Trombone 3 (sometimes called Bass Trombone)

[American Settings]
Baritone (parts provided both in Bb treble clef and concert pitch bass clef)

[British settings]
Bb Baritone (treble clef)
Euphonium (concert bass clef)

[American settings]
Tubas

[Bristish settings]
Basses
String Bass

Vocal (if required)
Piano (if required)
Harp (very rarely used)
Celesta (very rarely used)

Drums
Untuned Percussion
Mallet Percussion
Kettle Drums

Guitar (if required)
Electric Bass (if required)

Other instruments might be included in specific settings, and not all instruments must be used.

Instruments like Flute, Bassoon, Alto Sax, Tenor Sax might have only one part, or might have two parts printed together, or might have two seperately printed parts.

Some instruments might have more than the number of parts listed. For example, Grainger's "Hill Song Nr 2" has a Bb Clarinet 6 part.

Very rarely bassoons appear between clarinets and saxes (as they would commonly do in orchestral scores).

With the Horns, standard orchestral writing applies - 1st and 3rd play high, and 2nd and 4th play low.  Some settings have 2nd and 3rd the wrong way around, but the players can simply swap the parts!  The difference from orchestras is that band settings ALWAYS use key signatures.  Old style bass clef transposition is very, very rare.  The modern bass clef transposition is used except for some orchestral transcriptions, where the transcriber probably didn't know about the octave.

Trumpets and Cornets seem to be almost interchangeable, with most settings having only one type of instrument.  Where there are both types, cornets usually appear above trumpets.  It would be extremely rare to have six different parts, but rather Cornets 1&2 and Trumpets 1&2.

For American settings, Baritones usually have a concert pitch bass clef part and a Bb treble clef part (with the same transposition as tenor sax and bass clarinet).  These parts nearly always contain the same music, but not always.  For British settings, the Baritone part is usually only Bb treble clef, and the Euphonium part usually only bass clef concert pitch.  These parts are quite often different.  Especially for older settings, there is only a euphonium part.

Low brass that are named as though they are transposing instruments (Bb Trombones, Bb/F Trombones, Bb Euphoniums, Eb Basses, BBb Basses, F Tubas etc) do NOT have transposed parts.  They are written in concert pitch bass clef (nearly always).  This "key" prefix only causes confusion, and - for parts - is better left out.  Trombones do sometimes use tenor clef.  Euphoniums do not (although it's one of the trick transpositions!).

The bottom of the score is not as fixed in order.  After Tuba/Basses, the remainder can appear almost randomly.

"String Bass" is the term preferred by most of the players of that instrument that I worked with, rather than Contrabass, Double Bass or anything else.  They generally would have preferred just "Bass", but British settings use this for tubas.  String Bass players are expected to play arco as well as pizz.  Bass guitarists pressed into playing string bass often have trouble with bowing, which might be useful to know if you're writing/arranging for the instrument.

One of the US Military bands (Air Force from memory) also used cellos in some settings.  These are listed just before String Bass.

I don't know orders for non-British, Non-American settings, as I rarely saw them (which is probably a pity).  In Australia, we used an even mixture of British and American.

Re: concert band templates

Reply #5 –
I guess the Bass Sax was only used in the marching band !! :)

Re: concert band templates

Reply #6 –
There will always be a particular "colour" instrument that someone, somewhere, plays and for which some composer wants to write a part.

Bass saxes are not extremely common in concert bands.  Are they used frequently in marching bands today?  How are they carried (they're kinda large...)?

For those who don't know how big they are, here's a picture of Otto ("Toby") Hardwick playing one in the Duke Ellington Orhestra in London in 1933.
http://www.hapa2.com/Duke/images/palladium%20&%20duke%20ellington.jpg

(You may have to cut and paste if the hyperlink isn't complete)

Re: concert band templates

Reply #7 –
Bass Sax:  No, I can't remember ever seeing a marching band setting with it in.  I know I wouldn't want to lug the beast around.

Percy Grainger used it every now and then - definitely in Lincolnshire Posy, Immovable Do and Ye Banks and Braes - and most likely in others.  (Apologies in advance:  He just couldn't get enough sax.)

Some of the older Duthoit arrangements (and others like them) used it.

It tends to be used when a composer/arranger decides to have complete families of instruments.

It was also included in a show I recently played, in the Reed 5 book for "Music Man", but that's hardly concert band, is it?  Other musicals where it appears are "Anyone Can Whistle", "Funny Girl" and "West Side Story".

Re: concert band templates

Reply #8 –
Here is a link to the Duke photo that works.  Apparently there is a bug in the forum code that inserted a semicolon into the URL.

Re: concert band templates

Reply #9 –
There is a piece by Bernstein which uses the bass sax called Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs.
If you find a recording of it, I'm sure you will enjoy it.

Re: concert band templates

Reply #10 –
Bug fixed.

Re: concert band templates

Reply #12 –
Fascinating site! - thanks for posting the URL, Cyril.
 

Re: concert band templates

Reply #13 –
Thank you Steve and thank you Eric.  The picture's great isn't it?